The saving slide to dynamism: ellipsis caught up in its otherness.(Linguistics)

Publication: Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies

Publication Date: 01-JAN-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Adam Mickiewicz University Press

ABSTRACT

Locked into various accounts, ellipsis takes up all of the space of this article. Its theme being the conflict between deletion and non-deletion, the paper departs from transformational-generative grammar and passes through anti-deletionist programs to touch on an outline of possibly the most promising Discourse Representation Theory. However, the views presented are not quite safeguarded from the taint of the author's critical assessment.

1. Introduction

Ideally, this paper emerges as a meditation on and farewell to the position that elliptical structures and complete versions thereof ever display identity of descent, either semantically or syntactically. Thus this detour into the state-of-the-art profile of ellipsis finds one in pursuit of approaches that engage, rather than heal, the rift that may be felt between what ellipsis is in its heart and soul and much-talked-about attempts to recover for it the grace to cover more areas than its base allows. While sustaining a superimposition of appropriate theories of grammar over the span of this work, I do not examine the minute details pertaining to an interpretation of elliptical constructions. It is largely general assumptions drawing the ire of other linguists that form my chosen, chronological continuum from what is taken to be deleted (transformational-generative grammar) to what is taken to be woven into the surrounding context (dynamic semantics).

2. Ellipsis as part and parcel of optional deletion

The premises that underlie this work require that a spotlight be east upon those areas of ellipsis over which linguists usually part company; for clearly, ellipsis, with its products, is always comfortably digested into the linguistic system and adjudicated according to criteria at times not a little conflicting.

If sentences interpreted as deficient in semantic material start life as remnants from their "complete" counterparts, then ellipsis cannot be redeemed from its duty of a transformation-fueled mechanism. When Allerton (1975: 213) speaks of ellipsis, he does so in just these terms, expressly pinpointing the commonalities which must be wrested from this process and all kinds of regular deletions, Indeed, inasmuch as the nature of deletion points to intricacies more subtle than just the obligatory means of relating the "deep or intermediate structure of a sentence with a structure nearer the surface" (Allerton 1975: 213), ellipsis seems to easily wind its way into optional deletion, a channel through which the nuances of style show up.

Ever alert to the fact that object deletion sets the stage for a more profound scrutiny of the motivation for optional deletion, Allerton (1975: 214-215) teases apart verbs unaccompanied by any object that still demand that some kind of object be reconstructed in one way or another from those that do not. His distinction resonates with a sense of necessity to evoke the notions of contextual and indefinite deletion as the rationale behind those two verb categories, respectively. That contextual deletion is as much bound up with a linguistic context as it is with a non-linguistic one should by no means cause bewilderment. Nor is it possible for such verbs as the following, lifted bodily out of Allerton (1975: 214-215), to carry full messages when studied in isolation:

1) He's watching.

2) Sorry, I wasn't listening.

3) I just pushed.

Clearly, a stumbling block to any interpretation of these is the lack of any contextual background, as is borne out by every language speaker's total assent to the listener's need for further explanations. Once viewed from this perspective, contextual deletion goes all the way to erase only those items which have nevertheless been preserved in the flow of previous discourse, or are present alternatively in the form of some non-linguistic clue.

Standing loyal and true to his deletionist stance, Allerton (1975) considers it a perfect avenue to an illumination of the functioning of verbs like read, hunt, paint, clean, cook, drive (motor vehicles), examine (test academically),...

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